Wimbledon champ Andy Murray has ancestral links to Grantham

Lottie Weaver

Andy Murray’s great, great-grandmother used to live in Grantham, in what is now Indian restaurant Bindi.

Restaurant owner, Muhammed Karim, received a phonecall this morning (Wednesday) from a Paul Topliff to say that he had been researching the Murray family tree and he had come across this great Grantham link.

Muhammed Karim, owner of Bindi.

Gertrude was born in Sheffield in August 1881, and died in Skegness in February 1958. However both of her sisters, Eleanor and Edith Golding, were born in Grantham, Eleanor in October 1885 and Edith in October 1883.

Mr Topliff had searched the address on the internet and saw that Mr Karim was the current occupier so rang to tell him the astounding news.

Mr Karim said: “The Bindi restaurant is proud to be associated with the Murray clan. I think the link between Britain’s newest hero and Lincolnshire is a really positive thing.

“We’ve had Margaret Thatcher and we’ve had Isaac Newton and now we have Andy Murray. I am going to get a plaque to show how proud we are here at Bindi.”

When the Golding family lived at the address, the ground floor was a butchers shop and they lived upstairs where the flats are now. And according to Mr Topliff, Andy Murray’s links in this area are not just with Lincolnshire; it would appear that he is linked with Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Skegness, too.

Andy Murray is always very proud of his pure Scottishness but Mr Topliff is not convinced and says that Mr Murray’s roots are firmly here in the Midlands, and in Grantham.

Mr Topliff said: “I’ve been researching my own family history for about six-and-a-half years now, and then with all the excitement of Wimbledon I thought I’d start to look at Andy Murray’s lineage.

“When I saw the restaurant was there, I had to contact them because it’s really exciting. I think it’s a great bit of scandal.”

The Murray family tree, as researched by Mr Topliff, can be found on the website www.ancestry.co.uk